Written by Allen Tate, with a new Introduction by Louise Cowan

Details

ISI Books is proud to reintroduce this classic collection of nearly fifty essays by one of the century's most acclaimed poets and literary critics. More than three decades after its original publication, Tate's masterpiece speaks poignantly to the concerns of today's students, teachers, and general literature readers alike. It covers the broad sweep of his critical concerns: poetry, poets, fiction, the imagination, language, literature, and culture.

Additional Information

Format

Cloth

Pages

663

Publisher

ISI Books

What They're Saying...

"[A] set of essays that must be read by those Southerners attempting to understand the de-christianized and de-humanized world in which we now live."—Southern Partisan

"[I]ntelligence marked everything [Tate] did. He played a deeper game than his readers knew and, not only for those who love a puzzle, his persistence is assured."—Times Literary Supplement

"Alive today, Allen Tate would be in the thick of the so-called culture wars. He knew we were at war long before we woke up to the rumbling sound."—The Sewanee Review

"The new introduction to this reprinted work rightly lauds Allen Tate as ‘surely the most brilliant if the most neglected literary critic of our century…'"—The New American

"The reissuing of Essays of Four Decades may help to salvage the Catholic sensibility of Allen Tate for a generation largely ignorant of his work and badly in need of his wisdom."—The New Oxford Review

"Indeed, to read Tate's criticism is to be constantly aware that he is doing precisely what he describes here—namely, seeking to articulate a response in toto and refusing to 'shun the full report of the reality conveyed to him by his awareness.'"—The Hudson Review